6/ 25 picked up the ashes today

 

6/4/25

 

I am going to try to start writing again in a journal or something because I am feeling so low right not. I picked up Mr. Bojangles's ashes today and it was a lot harder than I expected

We put him down last week, the vet thought he had cancer. I tried so hard to take care of him, gave him medicine and carried him around a lot but he was so weak at the end he could barley get up. I am happy about how that went because we were able to lay down on the ground with him and I stroked his ears as he went.

He was the best fucking boy ever. Never tore anything up and was nothing but love. I need to keep writing that he wouldn't want me to be sad. That I need to take care of Rye. I need remember that but I miss him so much. He loved to run. I think I believe all dogs go to heaven so I want to think of him running in heaven. 

I think he saved my life. 

I’m at the library. I really haven’t wrote about my brothers death three years ago either. I haven’t done really any writing which is probably bad for me. Rye is having a very hard time as well. I’m a pro wrestler now as well and Trump is in office. There is just so much strange shit going on that I couldn’t have believed years ago.

I should write that story and call it wrestling with death.  

My stomach is sore and some crazy person is yelling (Not me ha ha) so I think I’m going to try to go to the gym. I read my old journal the other day so that’s what I am going to try to do and read more maybe that will make things better. God mom is such a mess too it’s just a lot. Just a fucking lot.

From my journal

We made our way past the Vietnam War Memorial which is a very solemn place, and to the WWII memorial, which was very majestic, towards the Washington monument. Ryan and I had a small debate on the legacy of George Washington and as we neared the end of the National Mall he purchased some roasted almonds.

The National Kite Festival was going on and it is a sight I will never forget. There were thousands of kites, shaped like snakes, birds and dragons flying in the clear sky near the monument. We watched for a few minutes as a kite battle took place where they attempted to cut each others lines before we moved on to the MLK and FDR monuments.

Both were very moving and in a way depressing given Trump's election. Here there were, written in stone, inscriptions demonstrating the value of peace, tolerance and kindness. Meanwhile Americans just elected a man who stands against religious freedom, has been successfully sued for rental discrimination and who has continued to promote misogynistic speech.

Recently Trump admitted he does not know that slavery is the reason why the Civil War was fought. Months after that night I spent in the newsroom watching the results come in I am still disgusted with people who voted for someone who has no business being president.

Rhelia and took our picture in front of several cherry trees blossoming and we made our way to the Jefferson Memorial. There was a party going on, a young girl's Quinceanera, and Mexican-Americas were dancing with strangers on the steps overlooking the water. Music was playing and it was very beautiful.  

 A White House helicopter flew over. We discussed how it wasn't Trump, because it was the weekend he was most likely at his Florida resort golfing. 

The greatest died last night

Muhammad Ali died last night.

I heard the news from a friend. He called me when he saw it on TV, and I'm glad it happened I found out that way. It makes a little more sense to me, it's a little more human, to find out that someone died from talking to a person rather than through a text message or Facebook post.

For more than a decade, Ali lived less than 20 miles from my house in Berrien Springs, Michigan. On Facebook countless people I went to high school with posted pictured of themselves with the boxer. Ali still made appearances at bank openings and community college events in my hometown even though he was deep in the fight against Parkinson's disease.

One of the coolest stories I read was by a woman that went and saw the Will Smith movie “Ali” and noticed the man himself walk into the theatre just as the film started. He signed her movie ticket afterwards.

I never met Ali, but my dad did and got him to autograph a pair of boxing gloves to my brother and I. The signature is faded now, but my mother still has those gloves, and if I had to grab a handful of things out of a burning building, those gloves would be one of the items.

My father was one of the guys that would buy PPV boxing fights and have a couple of friends over for beers when I grew up. I still remember being able to stay up late and watch Tyson-Holyfield I and II with them, and my dad told me he had a collection of fights he had taped (on a VCR) from over the years.

My junior and senior year in high school I started training as a boxer, with a man who had won several “Toughman” competitions. We trained in a barn in the summer in and I jumped rope and sparred in 100 degree heat.

Later I trained to fight in Holland at an abandoned church and in Benton Harbor at a community center for troubled youth. I fought in a Golden Gloves tournament in Grand Rapids and lost.

Ali was never far from my, or any other boxers in the area's mind. We all knew he lived in Michigan. My trainer in Benton Harbor had told me Ali had come and watched people work out in the old building before. Every kid hitting the heavy bag hoped he would stop by again.

One thing you learn when you box if what it's like to be hit. The first few times it happens you can't help but close your eyes and flinch, but eventually you get used to taking a punch.

Ali will be remembered for his speed, for his humanity and for his charisma. However whenever I think about the fights he had both in the ring and outside the ring in his life, I think what set him apart was how he took a punch.    

He was knocked down, but he always got back up. He had the heart of a champion, not just the talent.   

Follow Nicholas Grenke on Twitter @NickSJ86.

B.B. King shows the blues to me at 16-years-old

When I was 16-years-old I was in love with the blues.

The money for my first job working at a bar went to CD’s, music lessons and a black Gibson Les Paul guitar. I would work as a bar back at Barney’s Boathouse until 3 a.m. and come home in the dead of night and plug in the basement and work on the 12-bar blues, minor scales and the difficult ba-bump rhythm that defined the backbeat that a second guitar player should have. I still wasn’t that good; but it made me happy to play, like I was working through something I couldn't explain.

It was with money from that job that I went to my first concert in Kalamazoo to see B.B. King.

It was the start of Spring Break and while other kids in my high school were getting on planes to Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and Daytona to get drunk and get laid, I was a virgin looking forward to getting my wisdom teeth removed on Monday.

That Saturday Cory Ortiz and I drove up to the State Theater to see the living legend. We were amazed we were getting this link to history while he was still alive and we were now getting the chance to see him. I thought it might be the last chance to witness the 79-year-old, not knowing how much longer he would be touring.

Besides, he had a lot of money and when would a man his age play a small venue in Michigan? He would probably never even play the in the state again, I told my friend. 

But we didn't know why he continued to tour at that point. He did so to give the blues to a new generation he said in a Guitar World interview a few years later. The fact that King toured for 10 more years shows how much B.B. King loved performing and sharing the blues with everyone.

It was one of the first trips I ever took out of my small town without my parents. The one-way streets of Kalamazoo were confusing, and I was panicking that we would miss the show, but we finally found a place to park. 

The opening act took the stage with by himself with just a guitar and played the sound of deep delta blues, like Robert Johnson played. During intermission I met him shook his hand and dumbly said I had heard of him from a short profile done on him in Guitar World a few months earlier.

The State Theater seemed as historic as a Civil War battlefield that night. It could be my imagination, but it was eerily lit by chandeliers and as we waited on the main show. I looked around at all the people. I was surprised to see one of my co-workers, a bouncer who was the size of a small house. We waved at each other and shortly after the lights came down and King walked slowly on stage. He made it over to a chair and made a joke about how he couldn't stand anymore during the whole performance, but he said, "I know the music will still move me."

And he was right. Part of me was worried that the show would seem sad; King being confined to to a chair. But his playing was as inspiring as Eddie Van Halen throwing his guitar around his neck and jumping in videos from 1979. A couple of times he did stand when he was singing a highly emotional lyric and the house went wild, but every time he played guitar he was sitting down, concentrating. 

The backing band was at least 20 deep, and if I remember correctly dressed in red tuxedos. King joked that he was losing money on the tour because he had to pay everybody.

The rest of the concert is lost to memory now. I remember buying a black and white shirt with picture of a young King and old acoustic guitar (see below.) For years afterward whenever, even after he quit work as a bouncer and worked as a florist, whenever I saw Adam we would talk about the concert.

I wish I had a journal from that time in my life, but from what I can recall the drive home the sky seemed as black as the shirt I bought, but I don’t even remember who drove there and back.

However, I do remember when I got home it was late at night and my parents were ready for bed. They asked me how it was and I said it was great, but I didn't linger long talking to them.

I went down to the basement, plugged in my Led Paul and tried to play the blues until 3 a.m.

Old School Review #1 Larry McMurty

Larry McMurty’s first novel starts out with a beautiful passage about life on the plains of Texas. The idealized description of the land hits the reader and brings to life the feeling of being alive. It also explains why the writer felt the need to explain the beauty of the land where he was from.

What continues is a melancholy coming of age story, (Aren’t they all?) about the loss of the narrator’s way of life and home.  

The book I has a sense of desperation and sorrow in it, the good kind. The sorrow is the sad, earnest sense of losing a lover and the desperation feels like that of a maniac, the writing contains the riveting energy of a boxer behind by points in the final round.

I am a big fan of McMurty. His later novels, “Lonesome Dove,” and “Streets of Laredo” are well-known westerns set in the Wild West’s last days. “Horseman, Pass By” like “The Last Picture Show,” are perhaps not as well know, but are both classics. Both were out shined by movie productions starring some of the coolest men to ever step on the screen, Harrison Ford and Paul Newman.

Still, “Horseman, Pass By” will be a favorite of mine because the characters are as real to the reader as a pair of Levi Jeans and a big front porch.

The novel is written from the viewpoint of Lonnie, who lives on a cattle ranch with his grandfather, his grandfather’s second wife, her son Hud, a house keeper and several cow hands. Life is changing on the ranch, and not necessarily for the better.

Revealing too much more wouldn't ruin the joy of reading the book, but I don't want anyone not to read it because they feel the plot has been spoiled. 

The book is set in a time more than 50 years ago, and although a lot has changed since then, people today still feel a bone chilling sense of loneliness from time to time. I wish I read this book years ago, because I could have been able to really relate to the author. 

Below is the Yeats poem the book's title is from. I love books that are as inspired as "Horseman, Pass by" is. 

I don't hate Robin

Comic books are expensive.

Not the single issues, the ones that you purchase for $4. The problem with those is that they take five minutes to read, don’t contain a whole story arc and if the reader misses an issue the he/she misses out on major plot points.

What I’m writing about is a collection in a single bound book sold for $20 at a store. These ones still only take about 30 minutes to read and it’s difficult to justify paying that much money for something that lasts such a short amount of time, while making a waiter’s salary.

The past week I’ve gone to the downtown Kalamazoo library and checked out the collections they have. Comic books are located in the teen room, a marked off area in the basement where there are couches, “The Hunger Games” books and poetry collections. The room was created I think in part to give kids a place to hang out and feel safe. It would have been great when I was that age.

I try to go there during school hours, so I’m not the old guy reading superheroes.

It’s geared towards younger readers and maybe that’s why they have the first couple of collections of DC’s new 52 “Batman and Robin” series. I checked it out the other day in part because it’s nice to read a comic book when there people are in the house. For instance, you can read Superman and get asked to do the dishes without being concern of losing concentration, as opposed to “If on a winter’s night a traveler.”

I’ve never liked the character Robin too much. When I was a kid I was happy that my younger brother always wanted to be the part  for Halloween or when we were playing pretend. The Batman character seemed at odds with having a sidekick and since Robin was put into the comics’ last century solely to sell more books, I wasn’t a big fan of the storyline.

In addition to that, Tim Burton and Christopher Nolen’s movies are much better than “Batman Forever” or “Batman and Robin.”

But writer Peter J. Tomasi and artists such as Patrick Gleason have put together an amazing series (although I just found out Tomasi is leaving the book.) The story line touches the right nerves and balances the father son dynamic without being overdone and corny.

For those don’t read comic books, here is the summary of the current story line of Batman and Robin.

The new Robin is Batman’s son Damien. For some quick background, Dick Grayson was the original Robin and is now grownup and is Nightwing. Jason Todd was the second Robin, was killed by the Joker, came back to life and is now called “The Red Hood.” Tim Drake was the third Robin and is now the Red Robbin.

Now for the comics I’ve been reading. Robin’s mother, who is a bad person, created the current Robin, Damien in a test tube, without Bruce Wayne ever knowing about his “birth.” She raised him to be a deadly assassin from day one and when Robin was 10-years-old he was introduced to Bruce Wayne.

She taught Robin to be a bad guy, so it’s the basic nature/nurture argument there. But Robin decides to be with his dad and she retaliates by putting a $500 million bounty on his head.

Batman is not a great father, but Damien isn’t a very good son either. Batman’s one main code of ethic is that he will not kill anyone, something Robin doesn’t have a problem with, until Bruce Wayne attempts to “fix” the problem.

He doesn’t get along with his “older brother” Robins and puts himself in dangerous situations.

However Robin grows to become a more moral person throughout the series. Although he’s dismissive of Batman and draws disturbing pictures in his journal in the first couple of issues, they eventually get a dog and Robin starts to learn to be more ethical. Alfred and Damien form a great bond. Damien also finds one of Martha Wayne’s pearls and gives it to Bruce.

Then Robin dies protecting his father.

I was surprised the writer would kill such a young character, although I knew he wouldn’t be dead for long. (People are never really dead in comic books.)

Bruce Wayne acts a lot like grieving parents I have known. He blames himself. In the first issue after Robin dies there is no dialog, but lots of strong images, such as the Batmobile driving over the streetlight on crime alley where his parents died.

Batman goes on a spree and arrests a bunch of thugs, ties them up and puts under the Bat Signal for Gordon. He keeps getting more depressed and angry, so Alfred calls up the Robins to talk to him. He also pairs with Catwoman to save a young child.

Eventually he goes through a fight simulator over and over again to see if he could have saved his son. He finds out he couldn’t alone and the last issue of the storyline I read has Alfred taking a simulation and we find out that he could have prevented Robin from leaving the Batcave that night. He cries and Bruce puts his hand on shoulder and says, “I’m sorry I forgot you lost a son too.”

I’m well behind the current story, where Bruce is apparently dead and Robin has come back from the dead with superpowers, but I was very impressed with these books.

I thought the idea of Robin was just for kids, but the story of Batman and his son had great storytelling potential.

Like a Lamb

I was sitting in a bar, waiting for my laundry to next door dry last week. It was nice talking to the bartender, who I hadn’t spoken to for a while, and while I finished my whiskey and ginger ale she asked me where my wife and I were living at now.

“Oh still in the Vine neighborhood,” I said.

“There are days, mostly in the spring,” she said. “When I drive down there and wish I still lived there, everyone is outside riding skateboards or walking their dogs and it looks like fun.”

“But,” she said. “Other times I go down there and can’t help but see all the broken beer bottles and the trash.”

Thursday, spring was in the air and it was one of the days I was able to look past trash.

The boulders of snow were dwindling, the sidewalks were mostly free of ice and our dog, Mr. Bojangles, was terribly excited.

He’s half Yorkshire Terrier and half Jack Russell (we think, he’s a rescue) February was so cold he couldn't walk far without getting frostbite. So with the sun shining and a light jacket on I went outside with him.

We passed a house with a college kid wearing a tank top and basketball shorts was grilling hamburgers on the porch. There were countless cigarette butts on the sidewalk but Bo wanted to go up and get some meat, the kid laughed.

“Sorry that’s for me little man,” he said.

I laughed.

We passed the adult rehab home. The men who stay there scare a lot of people on the street, but they’re trying their best, and from what I have heard, it’s difficult to get into the program.

Last summer there was an older man who lived there that had trouble communicating. He spent a lot of time outside on their steps. He was always nervous and polite when he asked if it was ok to pet Bo,, even though my wife and I always said it was fine. Seeing his smile light up when he petted the dog always gave me a warm feeling inside.

I don’t think he still lives there. If he does I didn't see him this week. The sidewalk is still blocked by a pileup of snow from the nearby parking lot, so I walked to other side of the street.

Further down the street was a group of WMU students on Spring Break. They were drinking PBR and listening to music. They said hi and asked his name, and laughed when I told him it was Mr. Bojangles. After we left, I picked him so he didn’t step on broken glass nearby.

We walked further down Walnut Street. Ahead on the hill was the remains of East Campus. It’s completely covered now in protective plastic and is set to open in June as an alumni center. I look forward to visiting it.

On Davis Street there are two retired couples that live next door to each other. They are part of the minority of people that own their own houses in the neighborhood.

I don’t know their names, but both couples have small dogs, Benjie and Suzy. They call my wife and I Bo’s parents. When we got married in October Benjie’s mom gave a small wedding present, just a coin purse. We have a special place for it.

When I turned the corner to come back to the house near the open field, I passed a teenager watching his younger brother and sister throw a baseball back and forth. He was reading a book in an oversized tire left by the football team, while his siblings struggled to hit swing a large bat.

When I came back home I heard the couple next door fighting loudly. When I tried to fall asleep later that night I prayed the loud explosion was a firework and not gunshot again.

Today, (Monday) Rhelia took Bo for another long walk and saw someone had planted flowers in their yard already. I saw them this afternoon, after her, Bo and I walked in the opposite direction of a loose pit-bull and I again carried him over some more broken glass.     

Goodbye and Thanks for all the Fish

I felt a melancholy sense of sadness during Harding’s “50 Percent Off Going out of Business Sale!” late last week. The store has now closed, but seeing the lone package of frozen potatoes in the freezer section, the nearly gone supply of soup and the inexplicably still there Halloween decorations made me think about my history in Kalamazoo.

I say this because the store has been a constant since I moved to town seven plus years ago. It’s location near a heavy rental property section of town had made it more or less my grocery store for many of those years. I know fearing change is common problem, and I can still drive somewhere else to pick up lunch meat. But for many of my neighbors, Harding’s was the one place they could walk to in order to buy ramen noodles, or an apple, or even a couple of beers.

It’s strange for me to write about a grocery store closing again, because the first article I ever wrote (St. Joseph High School’s “The Wind Up,” circa 2003) which made me think about possibly writing for a living, was about a family-owned grocery store that closed. It had been across the street from my mother’s work and I had gone there as a child after school let out for years.

I interviewed the family that owned the store and they said they simply couldn’t keep up with giant supermarkets invading the area. I talked to customers who were sad to see it go.  

It was pretty good piece of writing for a 16-year-old.  

The response from my journalism teacher, Mr. Holt, was a lot of encouragement. It felt great that I was good at something other than just tackling a quarterback on a Friday night.

But that’s not what this blog post is about.  

In the first house I lived at in Kalamazoo I had four roommates and we were all under 22-years-old and immature. At that time I worked at a pizza place and the chief reason for me to go to Harding’s was to buy bologna (Yes, you can get sick of pizza) and beer. I would sometimes borrow my neighbors humorously basket equipped bike and buy the above mentioned items.

(They were even more irresponsible than us and ended up getting evicted after a couple months.  They didn’t have jobs, however they had a punk rock band, so they seemed pretty cool.)

If it was a Friday I would also cash my work checks there and get money order for my rent. While I was able to eventually obtain a bank account with money in it, there are still many people in the area who need these functions of a store to pay their bills.

On Holidays such as the Fourth of July and Memorial Day, my friends and I would go to the store and buy burgers, hot dogs and if we had a few good days waiting tables, steak. It seemed the good times would never end.

However, a strange thing happened. I got older.

After several crash and burn relationships, I met the woman who agreed to marry me. She lived near the store as well, and I gave up a fear of commitment while we walked alongside the flour and the baking pans.

I know that it is a lame and sexist joke that, “I married my wife because of her cooking.” Still in my case it’s somewhat true. Rhelia is a great cook. She grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, where cooking is still an art form.

If you listen to “A Prairie Home Companion,” you’ll understand what I mean. If you don’t well, listen to public radio once in a while, it’s a lot of fun.

We learned to navigate the sales on our tight budget, and she made me great home cooked meals for me in the first time in years. When she wasn’t in the mood to cook, I made some pretty good frozen pizzas.

So when we walked along the emptying isles of the store last week I was sad, not just for losing the convenience of the store, but by losing an important part of the neighborhood. It was crowded, and there were all types of people there. Young people and old people, black and white, people we knew and people I couldn’t have known from Adam.

In addition there were people working the checkout lanes. They were real people, not machines and they checked you out and bagged your groceries instead watching you do it, like at other stores in town.

Even though I don’t know the names of everyone that’s worked there, most of them were nice. The owners of the store said the people could possibly move to other jobs in the company, but most of the 60 people were left without a job, according to an employee I was talking to.

I hope they can find a new job. I hope the location gets a new grocery store, although I don’t have much hope for one. The store was built in 1971 and has been a grocery store all that time. A developer has bought it, but a developer recently bought the Packard Plant in Detroit too.

The difference was the grocery store was still useful.  

For diehard County commissioner fans...Not much happened at this meeting.

The St. Clair County Commissioner met in Marine City Thursday and heard a presentation from City Manager John Gabor that detailed Marine City’s revitalization program.

“It’s a great story to tell,” County Chairman Jeff Bohm said. “They’ve really revitalized the downtown.”  

Bohm said the presentation detailed unique shops that have returned to Marine City in the last eight years and how the city has had to make some tough changes.

“It’s a great small town,” Bohm said.

In other news, the board of commissioners appointed David Whipple of Port Huron to the St. Clair Library Commission Board. Whipple will replace retiring library chairman Arnold Larson.

“He’s a good man, and involved in the community,” Bohm said.

Commissioner Tom Reilly said the board also discussed using natural gas to power facilities at the county-run Smiths Creek Landfill. The landfill currently uses propane for operations.

“It’s time to make a change,” Reilly said. “It’s something I’ll discuss more at our next meeting.”  

Writer Cut: County to buy Art Van Building

Readers, this is unedited so their may be some typos, but since their is high interest in the article I figured I'd include some of my notes. 

The St. Clair County Board of Commissioners approved spending $560,000 to buy the former Art Van Furniture building in downtown Port Huron at a board meeting with a 5-2 vote Thursday night.

Commissioner Tom Reilly and Bill Gratopp voted against the purchase.

At the start of the meeting, two memorandums were added to the board agenda that detailed the agreement between the board of commissioners and the library, and the parks and recreation department.

More than a dozen members of the community attended the meeting to voice their disapproval of the purchase, including city and township officials. In addition many nurses, from the St. Clair County Health Department spoke against spending such a large amount of money on the property when they haven’t received a raise in year.   

Port Huron city council member Ken Harris spoke against the resolution to but the property.  

“I’m here tonight to speak against the property purchase.” Harris said. “I think this is a step backwards. I don’t see the advantages of having another parking structure.”

“Right now you don’t know that the money will be used for what it was being dedicated for,” Greenwood Township Supervisor Terry Gill said. “I don’t think you should be doing that.”

“I would like to know, what’s the rush? The first I heard about it was Wednesday in the paper. The mileages are coming up,” Lynn Township board member Juanita Hunter said. “It feels like this is being shoved down our throats.”

After each person spoke out against buying the Art Van building there was a loud applause from the audience.  After the purchase was approved many people attending the meeting walked out.

Before the meeting St. Clair County Library System Director Allison Arnold expressed her support of the property purchase.

“We’re looking at the future of the library,” Arnold said. “We know there is a need to update our building.”

Library board president Arnold Larson said that if the purchase is not used for library funds, it will serve just as a five or six years, and essentially is a fund transfer. He spoke in the meeting in favor of the purchase.  

“The St. Clair County Library System Board of Trustees is exploring the possible expansion of the main branch facility. If constructed, it is likely that an expanded or new facility will be located on the same block that the main branch now occupies,” the memorandum signed by Larson said.

“It is anticipated that if the Library expands or constructs a new main branch, that existing parking will be displaced,” the memorandum continued. 

The memorandum said the library would commit up to $200,000 to the purchase and if the library didn’t use it within 10 years it would be taken back. Commissioner Howard Heidemann said it was important to realize the money would be paid back if it was not used. 

County chairman Jeff Bohm had a presentation that explained how the property was on sale for $1.2 million three years ago and the board decided to buy the property after price for the property was lowered.    

He said the county had an independent specialist look into the cost of the building.  

“We like the property because of the way it fits into the county’s campus,” Bohm said.

Bohm said parking issues in downtown Port Huron have been well documented. He said the city of Port Huron has not made a firm commitment to using the property but said but they do have interest and added library has been in discussion with the board for a while on the subject.

“I’m not going to speak for them for their specific plans because they don’t have them honed in yet,” Bohm said.

Other members of the board offered support for the property purchase and said echoed that the purchase was approved by the library and parks and recreation. The decision to purchase the property was moved around on the agenda several times to allow for public discussion before the board voted on the resolution.

“What we have before us tonight is signed agreement with the library board and parks and recreation to move forward,” Commissioner Karl Tomion said.

Later, Tomion said a lot of people were getting the wrong impression were the county was getting the money for the purchase.

“We’re not raiding their funds,” Tomion said  

“The millage money is in question will be used for the library,” Commissioner David Rushing said. “There are a lot of legitimate concerns brought up tonight.

“I have reservations on this but I will be supportive,” Rushing said.   

Two commissioners spoke against the resolution, Tom Reilly said he could not support the project because of the way purchase was handled.

Commissioner Bill Gratopp said he could not support it the purchase because he ran for election on the promise of creating more public parks in his district. He said he believed the money was better used by the Parks and Recreation Department.

Before the board voted on the resolution Bohm said the board has discussed the purchase at length in workshops and with the public. He said the board have discussed the purchase for three years and the best time to act now. 

Links to Coltrane and Godzilla. What I'm listening to

Because every now and then I need to take a break from writing about car accidents, fires and editing the lame detective book I wrote; I’m putting together a quick five part list of music I think is good.

John Coltrane: A Love Supreme

Coltrane seemed to pushing ahead with every note he played; and never to a greater extent to this album that was recorded in December of 1964 and released in 1965. I have been listening to this 33 minute recording on loop for several weeks now and each time I'm blown always by the expansive emotion of you can feel coming from his saxophone. Part of it comes from the voice of the record even though only three words are chanted halfway through the first track, "Acknowledgement."

During the second and third tracks, “Resolution” and “Pursuance” respectfully, Coltrane’s saxophone wails outside of the standard scale of where the song should go, before going back into the grove where it then catapults the song forward.

My fiancé called me today while I was listening to it and I described part 2 on the record as being tossed around in the sea during a storm. That’s a good thing in my view—I like being on in a small boat in high winds.

An underrated aspect “A Love Supreme,” I’ve noticed missing from other articles about it is the interplay between the piano player and the drummer. There are moments towards the end that sound more intricate—and for lack of a better word—more hardcore, than anything ever played by a speed metal band.

Eminem: Rap God

I spend a lot of time driving north of Detroit and the rap stations in the city have been playing this song non-stop for the last two weeks. Slim Shady proves that he can still rap more skillfully than other rappers out there (well at least more skillfully than 2 Chains or whoever the else is popular right now.) Now that I’m on the eastside of the state I hope to go to a good rap concert sometime soon, although I know I won’t be able to afford tickets to his shows in Detroit at Comerica Park.

On a side note, it’s nice to hear Eminem rap without having to put up with a highly computerized hook featuring a pretty girl every freaking 30 seconds during the chorus.

Ornette Coleman: The Shape of Jazz Yet to Come

I planned on hating this record. Everything I’ve heard about Coleman is that he’s too out there; even Miles Davis once said he thought Coleman was insane. However even though the horns don’t seem where “they should be” this record works. I listened to it for the first time Tuesday as I was trying to jog for the first time in a while.

The drum beat changes quickly when you don’t expect it to, even in the records first track “Lonely Woman,” but that’s what keeps the music exciting. The tone of the instruments is also different. While the band doesn’t remain in a groove for long, when it’s there— it makes the moment count.

Various Arstist; Godzilla 1954-1975

If I ever played first base for the Detroit Tigers, I know what my walk up music would be. The original 1954 main theme (track 2) is the most instantly recognizable sound in the movies, but the dread of “Godzilla Comes Ashore” is a strange mix of classical music, jazz and classic monster movie sound.

I’d love that sound playing on a pitcher’s mind as I made my way to the plate. It would be much better than some players. (I’m looking at you Ben Zobrist.)

The rest of the album isn’t bad if you’re listening to headphones, but I wouldn’t recommend bumping the songs while driving around in a car this summer. Well except for “Mothra’s Song,” this is basically a pop song that is supposed to be sung by two magical Japanese fairies that are 6 inches tall. And this song rocks in any situation.  

Fun fact Godzilla’s roar was originally made by rubbing a leather glove down the strings of a bass. 

Outkast: Aquemini

The biggest song on this was “Rosa Parks,” but if you listen to the whole record you find that the hit single flows effortlessly with the rest of the album. Standout tracks are “Synthesizer” featuring George Clinton and “Da Art of Storytelling,” parts one and two.

I’m not a huge fan of rap, but this record shows where the style can go if rappers really wants to tell a story. The music itself is great, but the images Andre 3000 and Big Boi give the listener could be audio books or poems by themselves. 

Changes In Latitudes

Lake Huron is starting to freeze over the last night of me living at the Port Austin Motel. I’m heading to Kalamazoo tomorrow night for Thanksgiving and after that I will be moving into an apartment with a news reporter for the radio station in Bad Axe. It seems like it will be a great way to save money and even sounds like a start of an old sitcom on network TV.

It was pretty clear tonight and I walked out to the lake to look out over it for a last night here. I got to the last part of the dead-end road and kept walking on the beach. The sand has been frozen solid, so I didn’t get any sand in my shoes and it was so quiet, for a moment I thought I could hear the water turning to ice.

That was a silly thought, I couldn’t.

Instead a shower of snow appeared out of nowhere and started falling quickly, covering my coat in snowflakes. I hope that tomorrow when I am driving back to Kalamazoo in my trusty Toyota that the weather doesn’t change quickly like that and isn’t horrible

Work has been very busy this week because I am trying to cram what would be a full week’s worth of reporting and writing into three days. My editor Dave Shane said that I shouldn’t be concerned, I get paid for the time off because it’s holiday even if I work only three days, but that concept seems very foreign to me because of my time working manual labor and in the service industry. The concept of working hard – installed in me by my father and driven home when I realized what happens when you don’t (you get fired) is something that still feels strange when I’m doing what I enjoy doing… working at the newspaper.

Back to where I was. Living with Bryan closer to Bad Axe will overall be a big upgrade, saving me money and time spent driving. Still—I will miss staying here at the motel. It’s been a change of pace living alone for the first time in my life, but I will miss the feeling of living here. It’s kind of felt like a throwback to old Raymond Chandler books of a guy from out of town staying in a cheap motel, a hardboiled reporter writing for the paper.

My biggest regret is that I’ve been unable to finish the book I’m writing here although I’ve made some progress.

Most of all I will miss the motel owner, Michael. Having him and is wife up here when I first moved to the area was a godsend. They read the paper here and were very supportive of my articles talking whenever I see them. In additon, their dog and cats in the office and outside the motel always cheered me up and reminded me of home.

It was a little like having set of surrogate grandparents at the motel. I just went outside and had a talk with him. I said next time I’m in Port Austin I would stop by and have a cop coffee like we used to do outside before the cold weather hit.

So here end the Stephen King/Hitchcock like story of staying here throughout the Halloween season and the fall. The move will be great and offer even more in flexibility for the future, but part of me is sentimental about leaving.   

dropping to a knee...a look back

We both had to work Sunday lunch shifts at Red Lobster. It was a long day of endless shrimp, when we got out we were too tired to cook at home; let alone go hiking like we I had planned originally, instead we went to Harvey’s for dinner.

Rheila had a chicken sandwich and I had a salmon BLT. While we were there we talked about how we were  at the exact place where we had first met. It’s something we bring up every time we go there, but we still smile when we say it. The exchange always goes like this.

“You know I like these seats better,” she says.

“But,” I start to say.

“I liked it better when they would have live music upstairs.” She’ll finish.

I’m pretty sure the first time we met was a Monday, I had texted her friend who I had a crush on and she said told me to come down. I drove down and found out her friend was seeing someone, but would I like to be introduced to her fried? Later on that night we went back to a friend of hers house and drank till 5 in the morning. I don’t think Rheila liked me much when we first met. She most likely thought I was crazy.

After dinner Tony, Dave and I were watched football before Tony and I did laundry. Rheila watched the game with us for a bit before hitting the hay. I told her goodnight and after she went to bed I told the guys I planned on proposing the next day.

Rheila had to wake up early for class so got the coffee put together for her in the the night before all she would have to do was hit the button. After I ground the beans, I drew a picture of her, the dog, the cat and me in a sailboat for her with little fishes underneath it with my horrible artistic ability. Underneath I said in big letters, “I Love you.”

She said she smiled when she saw it.

I woke up nervous and after she left and walked the dog. Tony and Dave were pretty quiet and I just  wanted  for her to get out of class around 3 p.m. so I could get it over with. She had a test that day so I wrote her texts saying how much I loved her and that I would pick her up from class so we could go straight to the Kalamazoo Nature Center.

Just as I started to get really nervous, Dave and Tony left, so I was home alone. I wanted to get a haircut and also eat, but my stomach felt kind of queasy, so I packed up the ring and collected some money went out.

The barber college where I had got my gone before my interview in Bad Axe was closed so I went to Meijer to put money in the bank. The younger guys at Meijer were really nice and asked me how I was doing. I couldn’t keep it to myself.

“Well I’m going to pop the question today,” I told them. “I’m really excited yet nervous.”

The guy behind the counter told me not to worry; I couldn’t mess up worse than he did.

“I did it up north with wife on vacation. I took the ring out of my pocket three times and it put back in again before I worked up the nerve,” he said. “She was wondering what the problem was with me that day.”

After made the deposits I found myself wandering around the store aimlessly. I had some plan to get dog food, and also for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to get Rheila a new hoody as well, but I couldn’t find anything. Somehow I got the dog some food and a plush toy a chipmunk before I checked out.

The car took me to Red Lobster more than I decided to go there, I assumed I would get something to eat there and see some familiar faces. I sat in the car for 10 minutes outside and copied some Shakespeare I had found online into my notebook, in addition to that I jotted some things down that I wanted to make sure to say to her.

When I walked in they asked me if I wanted to work, because a host had quit that was supposed to work that day and a server had called in. They were really short staffed but I didn’t have my work clothes with me and was in no shape to work. I showed the ring to Rhelia’s friend Ali who teared up and a few of my co-workers. My manager Mike voice got soft when I showed him the ring.

“OH…that nice,” he said. “Are you nervous?”

“No. Terrified,’ I said.

Afterward I finally went to the barber school and saw the guy who was outside, Juan, who had cut my hair before. He was on the phone and said he could cut my hair after he got off break. I waited until he came back in and he called me to his chair while I had my head down.

“You cut my hair last time when I had a job interview,” I said. “It went well and I got the job. I asking my girl to marry me today so I figured I’d stop here again.”

He laughed and someone else in the shop asked me how I was planning on doing it. It seemed everyone crowded around me and the old man who ran the place put his hand out for me to shake. I did and told everyone about how I was planning on doing it at the Nature Center.

“Shit,” someone said you Juan. “You got him the job, now you need to get him the girl too!”

Juan took extra time to make sure everything was even and then shaved my face for no additional charge. 

After it was done I tipped him $10 even though the haircut itself had only cost $5.

When I got home I paced around the house and attempted to play video games for a while. I called my mom and nearly cried, I was so happy and nervous at the same time. She recommended I take a walk around the block so I did. I passed the Oak Street market and looked at the graphite on the walls outside. We had taken pictures there a few days before.

Finally 3 p.m. rolled around and I went to pick up Rhelia at KVCC. My eyes were red from being emotional.

I wore sunglasses when I pulled up and she greeted me with a big smile on her face. “I think I did well on the test,” she said.

She smiled and told her I loved her, and I asked if she was ready to get moving to the Nature Center. “I want to show you library here on campus, is that ok?” she said with a smile. “I think you’d really like it.”

We went with her through the school and really did think the library was cool. It looked like a rainforest was right behind the 20-foot-tall windows. We got some free books that were being given away and I was in a hurry to get to the Nature Center.

“I need to go home and change my shoes,” she said. “These are too nice to wear hiking.”

We went home and she said hi to the dog and changed shoes, luckily she decided she didn’t need to change her cloths.

We drove through the North side of Kalamazoo on the way out of town. As we passed several stops I thought about articles I wrote at those locations for school and for MLive when I heard a clanging sound coming from the front left tire.

“Please god just let us get there,” I said in my head.

The lady at the gate got my money and then asked if I wanted a map of the trails. Later Rheila said she thought it was somewhat strange that I said that we were ok so quickly. The car was still making a clanking sound.

Luckily when we got there I found out there was only a stick in the wheel well. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I didn’t bring my cell phone out to the trails, even though I thought I might want to take a picture, because I wanted to enjoy the moment in time and be completely “there.”

“Let’s go see your turtle pals,” Rheila said as we got out of car. More delay I thought as we went in the Nature Center building.

Still things were better because I finally was feeling calm because I was pretty sure that she didn’t know what was going on. It gave me some satisfaction to think how happy she would be and what a surprised I’d make her. We went and looked at the turtles and a couple of owls that have to stay inside because they have suffered brain damage. They’re pretty cute.   

Rheila walked in front of me towards the pond in the center of the nature center wearing a pink sweatshirt that wasn’t really needed because of the weather. It had turned out to be a beautiful day and we were able to see a few turtles swimming in the pond.

I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her as she leaned against a railing looking at the pond and kissed her check.

“Where do you want to go next?” I asked her. I still hadn’t decided on the exact location where I was going to ask her. I was torn between a secret waterfall that we both loved and a bench that overlooked a valley on the side of the hill.

“Let’s go to that bench.”

We had to walk away through the trail as I tried my best not check every step that the ring was still in my pocket. She slowed down for a moment and held hands with me before we got to the trail that went up the hill.

“You’re walking faster than me,” I said as I felt my heart beating at a crazy pace.

“I always have,” she said. “When we first started dating it drove me crazy how slow you walked.”

She paused to wait up for me. “Are you feeling ok?” she asked.

“Yeah, I just haven’t been taking care of myself lately.”

She got to the bench first and I followed her. “Let’s sit down for a moment” I said.

We looked out across the valley. On the other side the trees were still green but just starting to show that they would explode into the fall colors soon. Before us was a steam surrounded by more green and I remembered how when we had first started coming here the ground had been black and charred. The Nature Center needed to rebuild the forest from the ground up.

“This is the spot where I first realized I really loved you,” she said.

“We came here after my grandmother died,” I said.

“That’s right, well you brought me to the funeral and I realized how much I cared for you.”

I knew it was now or never, and I felt my back left pocket to make sure that the notes I had prepared where still there.

“I’m really glad she got to meet you before she passed,” I said. “She was always concerned that I wouldn’t find somebody and hopefully she knew we were working out pretty well.”

“You know I kept the earrings she gave me,” she said. “Well I kept one, but I lost the other, I know they weren’t anything expensive but I still have that one earring in a jewelry box.”

We sat in silence for a moment after that before I started again, reaching for my notes.

“You know we’ve been together for a long time, you were there when that happened, when my dad got out of…” I looked down at my notes. “That first Thanksgiving turkey that you cooked for him was really great. 

"With the move coming up I just wanted to tell you some things,” I said.

I took out Shakespeare’s 116 Love Sonnet (I had printed it out at home because I didn’t trust my handwriting) and read it to her. Afterwards I looked down at my notes and said a few more things about how I think people make their own luck, but I considered myself pretty lucky to have found her.

Her eyes looked crazy calm during the whole experience, and I kept looking in them as I talked. I got up by myself and walked to the edge of the hill and turned, taking the ring out of my pocket as I looked at a trout stream. She got up and I told her it would most likely be best if she stayed sitting down.

When I had practiced dropping to a key in the house during the week before, it had hurt and felt clunky. However this time when my knee hit the ground it was as easy and natural as the first time I ever did during middle school football. I felt young and healthy again

“Rheila will you marry me,” I said.

Her hands flew up to her mouth as she gasped a massive smile breaking over her face. “For real?” she asked.

“Umm yes,” I tried to say still on my knee.

I held the ring out and started to put it on her finger but it didn’t seem to go on fast enough for her so she put it on herself. Then she started kissing me and sort of picked me up. After we kissed for about 30 seconds I pulled away.

“So that’s a yes right?”

It was. We held each other close and I realized I wanted to remember this moment for the rest of my life, so I wrote this somewhat clunky story down. 

Death of a friend: There is a time to laugh and a time to weep

“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.” 
― Henry David Thoreau

Today one of the nicest people I’ve ever known, David Gumbleton died.

You hear that a lot after a person dies, “so and so was a good guy,” sometimes it becomes cliche. But if you would have me last week who was one of the nicest, kindest, most happy person I’d met, Gumby would have been on the short list, if not at the top. I knew him for five years only, but I’m grateful for the time I spent with him as a co-worker, roommate and friend.

I wasn’t as close to him as some of his friends, but he never made me feel that way. In the last few years it was too bad that I didn't have the chance to see him as often, but since I had been busy at newspapers and he had spent time in China it wasn't on purpose. He just loved adventures, including the one of that took him out west to national park this past summer.

Still when it was his birthday last year, he took time to message me individually to party he was having, not send out a mass text or invite, but let me know I was invited personally. Call me old fashioned but that's something people can overlook to do sometimes. 

When I got the party at his house he handed everyone who walked in a cup for the keg of good beer he had in the living room and when I tried to pay said something along the lines, “Your money is no good here.”

He just wanted everyone to have as much fun as he was having. If there was one thing in his life David knew how to do, it was to have fun.  

It’s strange right now in a one room motel, that I’m alone, 150 miles away from where I met Gumby. Strange because I have no one to talk to in person about this, and I’m just left with my thoughts. When I got Rheila on the phone earlier I cried, and she said it would be good idea to write down my memories of Gumby. She said he wouldn’t want me to be sad, but to do what I enjoy doing. To live my life as he would. 

So that’s what I’m going to try to do. Even though I’m supposed to be a “writer” and I love to write, I feel like my words so far are awkward and haven’t done justice to David. So I’m just going to let the memories flow.

I met Gumby at Bilbo’s Pizza, where we both worked as cooks. He was a couple of years younger than me, but he didn’t seem to be. In fact, I was shocked when I found out he was younger because part of him always seemed like some old wise hippie, or someone who had been to the top of a mountain. He seemed to have figured out how to be happy in life.  

When work was slow, we would take dough and play “Bozo Buckets” with old pizza dough, throwing it across the kitchen into the large, medium and small pizza trays. Of course this tended to get one of two of us in trouble once in a while with the managers, but that didn’t stop him from later teaching me how to juggle. Which I practiced at work. With balls made out of pizza dough.

Needless to say I got fired.

I still saw him off and on again for a couple of years while I was working at a different bar. He lived with several others of our friends and I would stop by from time to time and happen to see him. It wasn’t until I moved away from Kalamazoo and then decided to come back again that I really got a chance to spend time with Gumby a lot again.

I had just decided to reapply myself and go back to school after taking a year off working at a dead end job in St. Joseph. Luckily there was a job in Kzoo and I got the chance to move back there. Because of more luck, there was an open room in the house that he was living in on Austin Street with a another friend, Andrew.

Living there was my last real college experience, and Gumby was a great roommate in a not always so clean living situation.  When I moved in the kitchen was such a mess that no one would really want to go in there, even to mircowave pizza rolls. Bilbo's boxes were stacked up to the ceiling and I don't think we owned a vacuum. One good thing was that I'm really glad to live in a state where you get 10 cents for bottle returns.  

Andrew and I were really the reason the house was a mess. Still Gumby never got upset, and once in a while he would do all the dishes, even though we made the mess and the kitchen would be clean…for a couple of days.

Gumby loved animals and he joked that we had a pet raccoon that lived in a tree in front of the house. He used to leave out left over pizza for the animal so it would have something to eat during the winter. That changed when one day he parked under the tree and the animal must have eaten too many pizza crusts; it made the biggest mess on Gumby’s car windshield I have ever seen. It could have put 100 seagulls to shame. 

But through both of those situations, he never let it get to him. He would just smile and laugh and say something like "that's how it goes."

Another funny story is how we didn’t have garbage service at the house, just a trash bin that no one ever paid for. One night after the bar I walked home buzzed and came into the house annoyed because there was trash everywhere.

“That’s it,” I said. “We’re taking it to the dumpster.” He just laughed but he jumped off the couch to help me. 

As I ran up the hill to the WMU trash bin carrying a full rolling garbage can of trash Gumby ran right next me, keeping “lookout” for police. He had been playing a recorder he found (that little flute like thing kids play in second grade) and brought it with him, playing the one song he knew as I pulled the heavy can. After we illegally dumped it in a WMU dumpster we ran back down the hill, the clang of the empty garbage bin thudding in time with the flute as he played it. For years afterwards we talked about that night, never getting tired of how funny it was.

I was amazed at the energy he had. He would play soccer, rock climb and ride his bike even when he had to work doubles at work. He was generous too, I remember how he would let me borrow his bike when I felt that I needed a little exercise or when I wanted to go to the lake by our house and not drive. 

He was happy to bring me along when I asked if I could go rock climbing with him. I went twice with him and both were great days. I had trouble climbing like he did, because I was 260 pounds trying to pull myself up the tiny grips wasn't as easy as for me as someone as athlectic as he was. Still, he was patent as he showed me what paths to take and what grips to hold onto the beginners wall. 

At the end of that day I still hadn't been able to complete a whole "course" up a wall, but he assured me I would be able to get to the top if I worked hard at it and made calm, fluid moves. He stood at the bottom of the wall and shouted encouragement, I can still remember the song that way playing through the speakers at Climb Kalamazoo at that moment , by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

He cheered for me to get to the top that day at Climb Kalamazoo, but  also in my enrolling in classes again WMU. He was postitive for me when I started to work at MLive and when he heard the everyday struggles that everyone sometime goes through in life. Sometimes you start to notice things when you live with someone, like how they react when you tell them my grandma just died or a fight I had with with girlfriend.

So really, isn’t that what being a good friend should mean, always being there to cheer you on to get to the top?

Now that he’s gone I’m in shock, but when I think about him, When I think about every time he smiled or laughed or said something funny, I smile. Part of me feels guilty for grinning or laughing out loud in this little motel when I’m so sad for for his family and friends who will miss him so much.

I’m sad that he's gone way too damn soon. But I’m also really happy he’s a person who loved life and enjoyed it to the fullest. I'm lucky I got to meet and spend time with him even for a little while. Knowing Gumby makes me want to be go forward living my life more like he did.